Wilkins is one of the few persons to have headed a college at both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. He was a polymath, although not one of the most important scientific innovators of the period. His personal qualities were brought out, and obvious to his contemporaries, in reducing political tension in Interregnum Oxford, in founding the Royal Society on non-partisan lines, and in efforts to reach out to religious nonconformists. He was one of the founders of the new natural theology compatible with the science of the time.[3]

Wilkins lived in a period of great political and religious controversy, yet managed to remain on working terms with men of all political stripes; he was key in setting the Church of England on the path toward comprehension for as many sects as possible, "and toleration for the rest." Gilbert Burnet called him "the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good."[5]

In 1656, he married Robina French née Cromwell, youngest sister of Oliver Cromwell, who had been widowed in 1655 when her husband Peter French, a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, had died. Wilkins thereby joined a high stratum of Parliamentary society, and the couple used rooms in Whitehall Palace. In 1659, shortly before his death, Oliver Cromwell arranged for Wilkins a new appointment as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,[15][16] an appointment that was confirmed by Richard Cromwell who succeeded him as Lord Protector. He was there long enough to befriend and become a patron of Isaac Barrow.[17]

After the Restoration

Wilkin's signature as Secretary, signing off the 1667 accounts of the Royal Society, from the minutes book

Possessing strong scientific tastes, Wilkins was a founding member of the Royal Society and was soon elected fellow and one of the Society's two secretaries: he shared the work with Henry Oldenburg, whom he had met in Oxford in 1656.[6][19]

As Wilkins was ordained, he spoke out against the use of penal laws, and immediately tried to gather support from other moderate bishops to see what concessions to the nonconformists could be made.[22]

A serious effort was made in 1668 to secure a scheme of comprehension, with William Bates, Richard Baxter and Thomas Manton for the dissenters meeting Wilkins and Hezekiah Burton. Wilkins felt the Presbyterians could be brought within the Church of England, while the Independent separatists were left outside. It fell through by late summer, with Manton blaming John Owen for independent scheming for general toleration with Buckingham, and Baxter pointing the finger at the House of Lords.[23]

Death

Wilkins died in London, most likely from the medicines used to treat his kidney stones and stoppage of urine.[24]

Works

Mathematicall magick, 1691

Frontispiece of John Wilkins "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" (1668)

The early scientific works were in a popular vein, and have links to the publications of Francis Godwin. The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) was followed up by A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640). The author highlights the similarities between the Earth and the Moon. Based on these similarities, he proposes the idea that the Moon would house living beings, the Selenites.[27] Godwin's The Man in the Moone was also published in 1638. In 1641 Wilkins published an anonymous treatise entitled Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger.[28] This was a small work on cryptography; it may well have been influenced by Godwin's Nuncius inanimatus (1629).[29][30] His Mathematical Magic (1648) was divided into two sections, one on traditional mechanical devices such as the lever, and the other, more speculative, on machines. It drew on many authors, both classical writers and moderns such as Guidobaldo del Monte and Marin Mersenne.[31] It alludes to Godwin's The Man in the Moone, for bird-powered flight.[32] These were light if learned works and admitted both blue-sky thinking, such as the possibility of the Moon being inhabitable, and references to figures on the "occult" side: Trithemius, John Dee, the Rosicrucians, Robert Fludd.[33][34]

Ecclesiastes (1646) is a plea for a plain style in preaching, avoiding rhetoric and scholasticism, for a more direct and emotional appeal.[35][36] It analysed the whole field of available Biblical commentary, for the use of those preparing sermons, and was reprinted many times. It is noted as a transitional work, both in the move away from Ciceronian style in preaching, and in the changing meaning of elocution to the modern sense of vocal production.[37][38]

A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649) took an unfashionable line, namely that divine providence was more inscrutable than current interpreters were saying. It added to the reputation of Wilkins, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, to have warned that the short term reading of events as managed by God was risky.[39]

In 1654, Wilkins joined with Seth Ward in writing Vindiciae academiarum, a reply to John Webster's Academiarum Examen, one of many attacks at the time on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their teaching methods. This attack had more clout than most: it was dedicated to John Lambert, a top military figure, and was launched during Barebone's Parliament, when radical change seemed on the cards. Wilkins (as NS) provided an open letter to Ward; and Ward (as HD, also taking the final letters of his name therefore) replied at greater length. Wilkins makes two main points: first, Webster is not addressing the actual state of the universities, which were not as wedded to old scholastic ways, Aristotle, and Galen, as he said; and secondly Webster's mixture of commended authors, without fuller understanding of the topics, really was foolish. In this approach Wilkins had to back away somewhat from his writings of the late 1630s and early 1640s. He made light of this in the way of pointing to Alexander Ross, a very conservative Aristotelian who had attacked his own astronomical works, as a more suitable target for Webster. This exchange was part of the process of the new experimental philosophers throwing off their associations with occultists and radicals.[40]

A Doctor counted very able
Designes that all Mankynd converse shall,
Spite o' th' confusion made att Babell,
By Character call'd Universall.
How long this character will be learning,
That truly passeth my discerning.[44]

^Rooney, Anne (2012). The History of Mathematics. Rosen Publishing Group. p. 65. ISBN9781448873692. An identical metric system to that eventually introduced in France was proposed in 1668 by Bishop John Wilkins, a founder of the Royal Society in England.Pat Naughtin (speaker) (6 August 2007). Metrication Matters. Google Tech Talks. Google (published 22 August 2007). Event occurs at 59:30. Who invented the International System of Units (SI) the modern metric system? ... Where? ... The metric system was invented in England ...Who? ... John Wilkins ...

^Green, I.M. (2000), Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England, p. 109

^Enos, Theresa, ed. (1996), Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age, p. 764

^Guyatt, Nicholas (2007), Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607–1876, Cambridge University Press, p. 43, ISBN978-0-521-86788-7, [Wilkins] urged his readers to 'remember [that] we are but short-sighted, and cannot discern the various references, and dependences, amongst the great affairs in the world, and may therefore be easily mistaken in our opinion of them.'... After the Restoration, Wilkins's words seemed particularly prescient.

15
Annotations

A mathematician and divine, Wilkins (1614-72) was about 56 years old when he first shows up in the diary on 25 November 1660.

During the Interregnum, Wilkins's connection to Oliver Cromwell, his brother-in-law, "had done much to protect Oxford from political interference. His written works, composed in language notable for its simplicity and clarity, included forecasts of submarines and interplanetary travel," says his entry in the L&M Companion volume (source of all the information in this annotation).

Pepys's library eventually contained at least seven of Wilkins's books, including his "Essay towards ... a philosophical language" (1668), in which the author created a universal language in the form of symbols. Pepys made some criticisms of the naval section of the book.

"One of the most original scholars of his day; a founder of the Royal Society," he was a "liberal" divine who strongly favored keeping moderate Presbyterians in the Church of England and advocated toleration for Nonconformists.-- L&M Companion

The L&M Companion only hints at Wilkins's extraordinary life. He had connections both to some of the highest members of English society during the Interregnum and the Restoration. He was the (popular) head of Oxford and Cambridge universities at different times, and was influential in the groupings of scholars who eventually founded the Royal Society. He invented various mechanical devices, speculated on others that would be invented in the next few centuries and wrote pioneering books in ciphers and symbolic language.

Imagine a kind of 17th century clerical Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, in terms of their holding of high office, intellect, originality, literary output and interest in tolerance.

"Yet I do seriously and on good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying chariot in which a man may sit and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat

Borges here is writing about "An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" (600 pages in large quarto, 1668) by Wilkins (the translation seems a little rough at points):

"He divided the universe in forty categories or classes, these being further subdivided into differences, which was then subdivided into species. He assigned to each class a monosyllable of two letters; to each difference, a consonant; to each species, a vowel. For example: de, which means an element; deb, the first of the elements, fire; deba, a part of the element fire, a flame. ... The words of the analytical language created by John Wilkins are not mere arbitrary symbols; each letter in them has a meaning ..."

"[I]t is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. ... The impossibility of penetrating the divine pattern of the universe cannot stop us from planning human patterns, even though we are conscious they are not definitive. The analytic language of Wilkins is not the least admirable of such patterns. The classes and species that compose it are contradictory and vague; the nimbleness of letters in the words meaning subdivisions and divisions is, no doubt, gifted. The word salmon does not tell us anything; zana, the corresponding word, defines (for the man knowing the forty categories and the species of these categories) a scaled river fish, with ruddy meat."

From: "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" A short essay by Jorge Luis Borges

There's a mistake in my "Wilkins on the web" annotation. He didn't head up both universities, but colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. I misread a sentence at this web page, which has another very good biographical essay on Wilkins.

John Wilkins, D.D., born 1614, took the Parliament side, and was made warden of Wadham College, Oxford. In 1656 he married Robina, the widow of Dr. French and sister of Oliver Cromwell. He was appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1659, but was ejected in 1660. Consecrated Bishop of Chester, November 15th, 1668. He died November 19th, 1672. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society, and jokes were often made respecting the publication of his work, "The Discovery of a New World."---Wheatley, 1896.

"In [John Wilkins's] "Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language," from 1668, Wilkins laid out a sprawling taxonomic tree that was intended to represent a rational classification of every concept, thing, and action in the universe. Each branch along the tree corresponded to a letter or a syllable, so that assembling a word was simply a matter of tracing a set of forking limbs until you'd arrived on a distant tendril representing the concept you wanted to express. For example, in Wilkins's system, De signifies an element, Deb is fire, and Deba is a flame.The natural philosopher Robert Hooke was so impressed with Wilkins's language that he published a discourse on pocket watches in it, and proposed it be made the lingua franca of scientific research. That never happened. The language was simply too burdensome, and it soon vanished into obscurity. But Wilkins taxonomic-classification scheme, which organized words by meaning rather than alphabetically, was not entirely without use: it was a predecessor of the first modern thesaurus."Joshua Foer. New Yorker Magazine, Dec. 24 & 31, 2012, p.88.

Dr. Wilkins, a man of a penetrating genius and enlarged understanding, seems to have been born for the improvement of every kind of knowledge to which he applied himself. He was a very able naturalist and mathematician, and an excellent divine. He disdained to tread in the beaten track of philosophy, as his forefathers had done; but struck into the new road pointed out by the great lord Bacon. Considerable discoveries were made by him and the ingenious persons who assembled at his lodgings in Oxford, before the incorporation of the Royal Society; which was principally contrived by Theodore Haak, Mr. Hartlib, and himself. His books on prayer and preaching, and especially his "Principles and Duties of Natural Religion," shew how able a divine he was. His "Essay towards a real Character and Philosophical Language" is a master-piece of invention, yet has been laughed at together with his chimeras: but even these shew themselves to be the chimeras of a man of genius. He projected the impracticable "Art of Flying," when the nature of the air was but imperfectly known. That branch of philosophy was soon after much improved by the experiments of his friend Mr. Boyle. This excellent person whose character was truly exemplary, as well as extraordinary, died much lamented, the 19th of Nov. 1672.---A Biographical History of England. J. Granger, 1779.

WILKINS, JOHN (1614-1672), bishop of Chester; Bjl. Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 1631; M.A., 1634; vicar of Fawsley, 1637 ; private chaplain to prince palatine, Charles Lewis, nephew of Charles I; adhered to parliamentary side in civil war and took covenant; B.D., 1648; warden of Wadham College, Oxford, 1648-59; D.D., 1649; centre of group of men who formed Royal Society, 1662, and first secretary; master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1659; incorporated D.D. Cambridge, 1659; deprived of mastership at Restoration; prebendary of York, 1660; vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, 1662 ; dean of Ripon, 1663; prebendary and precentor of Exeter, 1667; prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, 1668; bishop of Chester, 1668; published 'The Discovery of a World in the Moone,' 1638, 'A Discourse tending to prove that 'tis probable our Earth is one of the Planets,' 1640, 'Mathematical Magick,' 1648, and 'An Essay towards a real Character and a Philosophical Language,' 1668 (suggested by the 'Ars Signorum' of George Dalgarno), and other works.---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.